THE MEDIA EQUATION; Rachael Ray Gives the Gift Of Time

By DAVID CARR

Published: October 23, 2006

At the unveiling of the new Hearst building in Manhattan some weeks ago, there was a magical moment when two sturdy media icons, Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, ended up chatting with one another. Each occupies a singular place in American cultural consciousness: Ms. Winfrey, with her bootstrap message of personal empowerment, and Ms. Stewart, with her relentless pursuit of steely domestic perfection (she dismissed prison time as if it were a fallen souffl?

But there was a runway between them big enough to land another behemoth: Rachael Ray, who's probably best known for giggling her way through 30-minutes recipes on the Food Network.

Compared to Ms. Winfrey and Ms. Stewart, it is easy to dismiss Ms. Ray as a confection. But as a businesswomen, she is ditzy like a fox. While other start-up magazines wither, Everyday With Rachael Ray, published by Reader's Digest North American Publishing, is exploding, with a promised circulation of 1.7 million by next year. As an author, Ms. Ray has few peers, with 16 cookbooks that have total sales of nearly five million.

Her ''30 Minute Meals'' is the highest rated show on the Food Network and with the addition of her other shows about budget travel and dining, more than 11 million viewers watch her every week. Last month, she took her down-home ethic beyond the kitchen, coming up with a general interest five-day-a-week talk show, ''Rachael Ray,'' which had the highest rated debut of any show since ''Dr. Phil.'' Those are some big numbers for a woman that was doing in-store cooking demonstrations a little more than five years ago.

Whatever is at work here, it isn't just the food. Ms. Ray's ad-hoc kitchen ways -- spices measured by the palm and mistakes covered up with more olive oil -- represent a sharp departure from the aspiration that drives most cooking shows and magazines. She prepares food on the fly that actual civilians can make and eat, an approach that people with serious culinary backgrounds generally find unbearable; they see it as a plague of locusts served over a bed of toads in runny sauce.

OPRAH taught us we can be better human beings. Martha taught us we can do better than is humanly possible. And Ms. Ray? She thinks better is overrated. Now, you want some nachos and a cold one to go with that?

In an interview, Ms. Ray conceded some of the criticisms that trigger her harshest detractors' gag reflexes -- that she is a clumsy cook, smiles too much and has less than demure hands.

''It's all true and I can't do much about it at this point,'' she said by phone. ''I am doing programming that goes into people's homes and kitchens, about their kids and their pets, really personal stuff, and not everybody is going to like what I do.

''When I first heard from the Food Network, I told them that I was beer in a bottle and they are champagne, but it worked out,'' she said. ''I'm too loud one day and giggle too much next, or flub the intro, but what I do is not about technique. I need a story to go with the burger. People want to relax a little.''

Standing in line to watch the taping of her daytime show near Grand Central Station last Wednesday, a trio of women who had driven in from Long Island talked about how ''natural'' and ''down to earth,'' Ms. Ray was. Ann Marchesiello suggested Ms. Ray's time-saving idea of placing a garbage bowl next to the cutting board may be, ''the greatest thing in the world.''

Corey Champeau drove down from Connecticut to watch with her husband, Matt, a testament to how Ms. Ray, who once posed in lingerie licking a spoon for the men's magazine FHM, draws across genders. Ms. Champeau tunes in for the tips and recipes, while Mr. Champeau said, unlike most kitchen goddesses, ''she's the kind of girl you could actually ask out.'' (Actually you can't: she's married. And so are you.)

Just then, chef and bon vivant Anthony Bourdain came ambling down the block, stopping by for some voice-over work for his show on the Travel Channel. Rather than toe the chef's line that Ms. Ray is a perky philistine who is not so much democratizing dining as dumbing it down, he said her appeal had nothing to do with cooking or food.

''This is about a very recognizable, comfortable person, someone we all think we know, the sort of dream mom or sister we never had,'' he said, calibrating his words. ''People are attracted to her warm, if strident, embrace of the familiar.''

But Ms. Ray's folksy approach belies the sophistication of her message. She is part of the cut-to-the-chase genre of media, like Lucky, Domino and Real Simple magazines, and their success is built on this fact of modern life: if people are more secure economically, it is only because they are working longer and harder than ever before. Lifestyle porn is fine and all -- who wouldn't want to have that epic downtown loft in Architectural Digest or those lemon caper calamari steaks in Gourmet? -- but even if you can afford the ingredients, you can't afford the time to conjure them before dinner.

Ms. Ray's recipes may call for store-bought turkey loaf but she is really trafficking in the ultimate modern luxury: time. Other magazine cover lines promise to make you fit in 30 days or give you better orgasms in six steps. The latest Everyday With Rachael Ray promises ''Fall Style: lazy weekends, comfort food, easy entertainment.'' Inside, there are ''Messes and Successes,'' a shopping list that includes frozen fish sticks and a food shot that includes a can -- the horror! -- of beef broth, plain as day. The pitch for her show in the magazine pretty much sums the ethos up, suggesting viewers will ''realize that life just doesn't have to be that hard.''

Of course, life is plenty hard, which is why a woman who tends to find succor in a slurp of store-bought pasta is hitting a sweet spot. That may not meet Ms. Stewart's definition of a good thing, but Rachael Ray's fans know that, after a long day, it's all good.